Two days before the full moon and three days after I'd gotten drugged, Dain and I had to host our first formal dinner with him as Regent. We dressed up appropriately for the occasion, with Dain wearing something softer than his usual pitch-black avatar of Death ensemble (it was a charcoal gray avatar of Death ensemble) and me in a shimmering gown the color of the moon. We each wore our formal coronets, and Dain added to the ensemble a corsage of wild briar roses for me, and a boutonniere for him. It made me feel a little like a teenager going to prom, but he presented the flowers to me with such hopefulness that I couldn't bear to answer him with anything but happiness.

The dinner was perhaps half-over when the doors burst open, and a harried-looking soldier burst in, followed by a squad of the royal guard. Dain was on his feet in an instant, loping towards the soldier, who looked like he'd seen the Devil himself. My soulmate caught the man before he collapsed, as I picked up my skirts and dashed over.

I got there in time to see Dain turn chalky white, his eyes wide and his wing-arms flaring out in a defensive position, tails sweeping out behind him.

He allowed the guards to take the soldier, then turned to the High Court and called out in his battlefield voice, "You may continue your meal without us. Matters of state demand my attention." Silence rippled out from him, followed almost immediately by a rising din as upset people started demanding answers from him and from each other, but Dain only whirled and strode out of the banquet hall, with me following behind.

Only when we got far enough away from the hall that there was limited chance of someone busting through the doors to demand answers from him did Dain stagger to a halt and drop heavily against the stone wall of the corridor. The guards, all looking like they'd rather face death than whatever they'd heard, flanked him as I took Dain's hand.

"Tell me," I said, staring into his drawn face. Even in terror for my life he hadn't looked like this, as if the entire world was falling apart.

"Lyraniorn has been destroyed," he said, the words falling like stones.

I blanched; his mother had been there. Had we been wrong, and she was lying cold and dead, killed by someone intent on destroying Stag Court? Or had she brought destruction down on Lyrianorn, inviting in the enemy the way we thought she'd invited the Raven Court and Court of Mercy to the battlefield?

"What... what can destroy a city like that?" I asked, my voice wavering.

His face spasmed into a rictus of a smile. "I can."

"Sure, with an army."

One of the guards looked away, and Dain didn't say anything.